Since a few years back, the term Bildung seems to be having a renaissance in Sweden, and it furthermore, in the new Swedish Libraries Act 2013, became an objective for the libraries to “promote interest in Bildung”. As the act neither defines the term Bildung nor describes how the libraries are to promote interest in it, the purpose of this study is to examine this objective. Since previous research on Bildung and public libraries is sparse, when the adjacent term “folkbildning” is not included, this study is delimited to public libraries. To investigate the objective of the public libraries to promote interest in Bildung, two preparatory works of the Swedish Library Act 2013 were analyzed. The main themes of these documents were identified using qualitative content analysis. These themes were then interpreted based on the term Bildung. A definition of this multifaceted term was made in the theoretical part of this study. The history of the term, focusing on the period of the Enlightenment and the Romantic era, was accounted for, and central ideas and philosophical traditions identified. Seminal thinkers being, among others, Immanuel Kant, Wilhelm Humboldt and Friedrich Hegel. The main result of this study is that the fulfillment of the principal objectives of the public libraries creates favorable conditions for the objective to promote interest in Bildung. The challenges to this is increased economic and politic influence or control, or that the intrinsic values of Bildung is not upheld.

Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka hur skolbiblioteket kan utgöra en resurs i lärandet för gymnasieelever i behov av särskilt stöd. Tre skolbibliotekarier som är yrkesverksamma på gymnaiseskolor besvarade intervjufrågor av semistrukturerad karaktär. Resultatet av studien visar på att skolbiblioteken och bibliotekarierna på flera olika sätt kan stödja dessa elever i sitt lärande, men att det finns hinder av olika slag. De hinder som är mest framträdande är tidsbrist och brist på samarbeten. Riktlinjerna för bemanning av skolbiblioteken uppfylls inte och det medför att tid för samarbeten kring gemensam planering av arbetsområden inte finns. Dock framträder det att det finns en vilja till samarbeten hos skolbibliotekarierna. Dessutom visar det sig att elever i behov av särskilt stöd söker upp skolbibliotekarien för att få hjälp och stöd i lärandet. Skolans styrdokument och forskning i området betonar vikten av skolbibliotek som en del i den pedagogiska verksamheten.

While libraries are an actively supported institution in Sweden there is no distinct notion on of what their purpose should be. The purpose of this thesis is to clarify the discourse expressed in the referral responses to the memo-randum of the new library law, regarding the purpose and task of the public libraries in Sweden. The source material for my thesis was the memorandum sent out by the government during the process of introducing the new library law. I chose to use this memorandum and the municipal libraries’ referral responses on this memorandum as my source material. The thesis is based on discourse analytical theory focusing on discursive formations. In this theory, the discourse on a theme of discussion consists of various discourse formations that together form a common discoue. In order to distinguish these discursive formations, it is necessary to study the texts and examine their empirical foundations. In terms of methodology, this means that I related the municipal responses to four different concepts. These concepts were: "activities", "media", "users" and "librarians". Then I analysed these results in connection with previous research in order to define the different discursive formations I could discern. The seven discursive formations identified are: the educational discursive formation, the discursive formation of the library as the meeting place, the discursive formation of the physical activities of the libraries, the inclusive discursive formation, the cultural and information-mediated discursive formation, the democratic discursive for-mation, the discursive formation around the library's organization. These discursive formations are based on the specific themes they focus on. At the same time, two ongoing themes were identified for the discourse as a whole. The first theme is based on an emphasis on user accessibility and inclusion, as well as on equal communication between users and libraries. The second theme is based on an emphasis on equal treatment between different types of media and a negative attitude to the fact that printed literature was being given a special position in the libraries' activities in the memorandum.

The aim of this Master’s thesis is to investigate and increase the understanding of Swedish Public Library Websites and to determinate which activity they mediate. To analyse the Public Library Websites Andersson and Skot-Hansen’s model of roles for the Public Library has been used. This model in¬cludes four roles for the library: the library as a cultural centre, a knowledge centre, as an information centre and as a social centre. The questions examined are: - How do the public libraries occur on their websites? - How do the functions of cultural, knowledge, information and social centre occur on the Library Websites? The Method used for the studies is observation using as a tool a scheme consisting of the four roles in Andersson/Skot-Hansen’s model. The main findings are: - The social aspects of the Web have to be used in order to accomplish what the Library Law demands. - The Public Library Websites focuses on their catalogues and the activity of the physical Public Library. – The Websites is far from realizing the Library 2.0 vision as they offer no or inactive communication. –Websites which does not contain its own material works mainly as an advertisement for the Public Library. -The commitment to the websites of the community is a problem for the public libraries ambition to connect with patrons in new ways. -Even though aspects of all four roles in Anderson/Skot-Hansen’s model can be found on the Websites, these roles are still far from being central for the activity on the Public Library Websites.

This study investigates the professional, media-strategic practices that the requests by some users lead to, and how these practices can be understood and problematized in relation to the laws, regulations and governing documents to which the libraries relate. Thus, in this study, the media's media strategy choices are set in a context of judicial authority and legal principles. Based on four different concrete cases where a user reported the library's actions to JO, it is investigated what arguments users, libraries and JO use to claim their positions on the issue. In recent years, the various media strategy choices that the libraries make, about what books should be bought, moved, stored, or borrowed from other libraries, has increasingly been debated. In some cases this has led to reports to the judicial authority JO (Justitieombudsmannen), who has investigated the situation. In the center of investigations, there is often an individual librarian, who through his or her actions and choices, in the encounter with a user, is often faced with a dilemma and, as a consequence, sometimes acts without support in current legislation. Research shows that increased sick leave can be related to the worries and stresses that librarians experience in relation to these dilemmas. There is therefore a need for increased knowledge of the regulatory framework that libraries can seek support from in situations where they face contradictory norms and values in relation to a user's wishes.

This study investigates the professional, media-strategic practices that the requests by some users lead to, and how these practices can be understood and problematized in relation to the laws, regulations and governing documents to which the libraries relate. Thus, in this study, the media's media strategy choices are set in a context of judicial authority and legal principles. Based on four different concrete cases where a user reported the library's actions to JO, it is investigated what arguments users, libraries and JO use to claim their positions on the issue. In recent years, the various media strategy choices that the libraries make, about what books should be bought, moved, stored, or borrowed from other libraries, has increasingly been debated. In some cases this has led to reports to the judicial authority JO (Justitieombudsmannen), who has investigated the situation. In the center of investigations, there is often an individual librarian, who through his or her actions and choices, in the encounter with a user, is often faced with a dilemma and, as a consequence, sometimes acts without support in current legislation. Research shows that increased sick leave can be related to the worries and stresses that librarians experience in relation to these dilemmas. There is therefore a need for increased knowledge of the regulatory framework that libraries can seek support from in situations where they face contradictory norms and values in relation to a user's wishes.

The aim of this bachelor thesis is to examine what Swedish parliamentarians thinks about the library as an institution. To achieve this aim we use discourse analysis. By analyzing parliament motions from four decades we found nine discourses that represents a wide variety of thoughts and opinions of what the library is, what it should contain and what it should provide. The discourses that we identified are: the culture discourse, the multi-cultural discourse, the reading discourse, the technical discourse, the information discourse, the democratic discourse, the book discourse, the quality discourse and the learning discourse. These discourses can furthermore be divided in three branches that expresses continuous thoughts about the library. Those are that the library is for everyone, that the library is a carrier of something and that the library is an intermediary of something. The opinions differ between the left wing and the right wing as well as between the individual parties. The changes that can be seen over time is mostly due to the societal and technology development.

The purpose of this study is to penetrate how democracy in the public library is perceived, and in which context. Also the question of how the public library is legitimized, and in which context this is addressed. These two questions are then related to Bibliotekslagen §2. The focus for the study are texts written during the pandemic, and until after the war in Ukraine began. Trough narrative analysis, the texts are interpreted in the light of new institutional theory. Six main narratives with underlying narratives are found, and one narrative that goes across all other narratives. The narratives are 1) the public library in crisis or war 2) the public library and democracy 3) the public library and the municipally 4) the public library as the meeting place of the society 5) the public library and the librarians 6) the public library and communication. The narrative of the public library’s mission and supply of activities is a narrative found that goes across all other narratives. All narratives show discrepancies in the opinions that are found in the texts. This shows the challenges the public library faces in times of change.

The National Library of Sweden Kungliga Biblioteket has been assigned by the Swedish government to establish resource libraries for the Swedish national minorities. The library of the Finnish Institute in Stockholm is the resource library for the national minority Swedish Finns (also known as Sweden Finns) and the national minority language Finnish. This study examines how a collaboration between the Finnish Institute’s Library and public libraries can support the public libraries in their efforts to pay specific attention to, protect and promote the national minority Swedish Finns and the Finnish language, according to the Swedish Library Act and the Act on National Minorities and Minority Languages and Sweden’s minority policy goals. The theories guiding the study are R. Putnam’s theory of social capital and A. Vårheim’s and R. Audunson’s et. al. theories of public libraries as places creating social capital. The data was collected through qualitative interviews with seven librarians, representing both the Finnish Institute's Library and four public libraries in designated municipality level administrative areas for Finnish. The results show that public libraries could enhance their services and increase social capital of the minority group by cooperating with the Finnish Institute’s Library and make use of its resources and knowledge of the target group. This could support public libraries in paying more attention to children, young people, elderly people and also those in need of Finnish language revitalisation. Though the public libraries participating in this study had less cooperation with the resource library than expected, they’ve got much support from their municipalities and were more active in their library services for the Swedish Finns than many other public libraries in Sweden.

In this master’s thesis we examine how the public libraries’ role and mission has been interpreted during the covid-19 pandemic and how the public libraries adapted to the situation. Public libraries are communal spaces meant for the public and according to the Swedish library law the public libraries should work especially towards a few specified prioritized target groups. Therefore, we also wanted to consider which groups needs that have been fulfilled or not, through the adjustments during the pandemic. The material of the study consists of interviews with 14 public library directors and 1 developer of public libraries services. We applied Fairclough’s framework for critical discourse analysis on our interview material. This framework was supplemented with Habermas term the public sphere and with the discourses about public libraries identified by Hedemark.  In the thesis we identified reasons and arguments for how the public libraries readjusted their library activities and prioritized services. We also identified which discourses about libraries were noticeable in the library directors’ descriptions of the libraries’ role during the pandemic. Several discourses about libraries identified by Hedemark were common in the material. We also found a discourse that had not been identified by previous research, which we named the social meeting place discourse. We interpreted the prevalence of this discourse about libraries, which focuses on the social aspect of the library as a meeting place, as an effect of the pandemic. Since the libraries have not been able to function as meeting places during the pandemic, this function has become more noticeable. The closing of the libraries as meeting places has affected all the library users but has affected the libraries work towards the prioritized groups the most. In some areas of Sweden the public libraries have replaced some of the meeting place functions with new digital services. These adaptions vary greatly between different counties, which has meant that people have had different access to library services depending on where they live.  This is a two years master's thesis in Library and information science.